The Tax Reform Panel Report: “Blueprint for Change?”

On November 1, the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform  released its long-awaited report on how to fix the income tax, with proposals ranging from trimming the home mortgage deduction to limiting tax breaks for employer-provided health insurance. On Thursday, November 3, the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center hosted a presentation and discussion of the panel’s findings, assessing their potential impact on American taxpayers and the chance of success in Congress.

Rosanne Altshuler of Rutgers University, chief economist with the Tax Reform Panel, summarized the commission’s recommendations, and William Frenzel and Charles O. Rossotti, senior members of the Tax Reform Panel,  explained the reasoning behind their far-reaching recommendations. Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute, Eugene Steuerle of the Urban Institute and the Tax Policy Center, and Bill Gale of the Brookings Institution and the Tax Policy Center  assessed the panel’s success in meeting its stated tax reform goals.